Netanyahu to Ask for Extension to Form a Government

On Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s time to form a coalition government runs out. Netanyahu will then meet President Shimon Peres and ask him for a two-week extension to continue to pursue coalition talks. That meeting has already been scheduled and Peres has said he will grant Netanyahu’s request. So far, more than a month after the elections, just one party, the six-seat Hatnuah headed by former Foreign Minister Tzippi Livni has agreed to join the coalition. Netanyahu’s joint slate of Likud and Yisrael Beytenu won 31 seats, leaving him far short of the 61 out of a total 120 Knesset seats he needs to form a majority. Israeli analysts say that what seems the most likely is that both the centrist Yesh Atid, with 19 seats, and the right-wing Bayit Yehudi with 12 seats, will agree to join the coalition. They are demanding that the ultra-Orthodox, the majority of whom do not serve in the army, be drafted. If Netanyahu is unable to cobble together a coalition in the next two weeks, the President can ask a different party leader to take a stab at it, or call for new elections.